Nūḥ addresses them as يَا قَوْمِ—my people. He says, اِنّ۪ي لَكُمْ نَذ۪يرٌ مُب۪ينٌ: I am a clear warner to you. He warns them for their own good. Then the whole demanded response is gathered into three commands: اَنِ اعْبُدُوا اللّٰهَ وَاتَّقُوهُ وَاَط۪يعُونِ. Worship Allah: give the final allegiance to Him alone. Be mindful of Him and fear Him: let His authority and coming judgment carry their proper weight. Obey me: let the response to Allah become concrete in response to the messenger He sent. Other tellings of Nūḥ’s address repeat this union of exclusive worship, reverent fear of Allah, and obedience. Obedience to Nūḥ is not a rival personal claim; it is the form obedience to Allah’s warning now takes.

The commands open immediately into promise: يَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ مِنْ ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُؤَخِّرْكُمْ اِلٰٓى اَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى. If they respond, Allah will forgive their past sins and spare them the approaching punishment, allowing them to live until the appointed term. The warning follows: اِنَّ اَجَلَ اللّٰهِ اِذَا جَٓاءَ لَا يُؤَخَّرُۢ. If the time set for punishment arrives while they remain in disbelief, that punishment will not be postponed. The promise calls for a response before its opportunity is lost. لَوْ كُنْتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ—if only they knew, they would hasten to obey. Elsewhere the messengers describe Allah as calling people in order to forgive them and spare them until an appointed term. Nūḥ’s warning is therefore Allah’s own invitation passing through the voice of His messenger.

The scene then turns from Nūḥ addressing his people to Nūḥ addressing his Lord. قَالَ رَبِّ اِنّ۪ي دَعَوْتُ قَوْم۪ي لَيْلًا وَنَهَارًا. The reader is made to overhear the prophetic account: what was commanded, what was attempted, and what the people made of it. His call filled the cycle of their lives—night and day—yet فَلَمْ يَزِدْهُمْ دُعَٓاء۪ٓي اِلَّا فِرَارًا. His calling increased them only in flight. The Qur’an elsewhere names the same terrible possibility: what descends as healing and mercy for believers may increase wrongdoers only in loss. As the call was renewed, they renewed their refusal.

Their refusal is then shown in their bodies. Nūḥ says, وَاِنّ۪ي كُلَّمَا دَعَوْتُهُمْ لِتَغْفِرَ لَهُمْ—every time I called them so that You might forgive them. They are resisting a call whose purpose is their forgiveness. They stop their ears and cover themselves: جَعَلُٓوا اَصَابِعَهُمْ ف۪ٓي اٰذَانِهِمْ وَاسْتَغْشَوْا ثِيَابَهُمْ وَاَصَرُّوا وَاسْتَكْبَرُوا اسْتِكْبَارًاۚ. They block the voice and cover themselves so as not to see the caller. They persist in disbelief and deem themselves far above following him. Elsewhere, those who sin, remember Allah, and seek forgiveness without persisting are promised forgiveness and gardens with flowing rivers. Those sinners return to Allah; Nūḥ’s people persist in turning away.

Nūḥ changes the form of address without changing its truth. ثُمَّ اِنّ۪ي دَعَوْتُهُمْ جِهَارًا: then I called them publicly. ثُمَّ اِنّ۪ٓي اَعْلَنْتُ لَهُمْ وَاَسْرَرْتُ لَهُمْ اِسْرَارًا: then I announced to them openly and addressed them privately. Across night and day, Nūḥ keeps seeking a way to reach them. Al-ʿAnkabūt gives the duration of his stay among them: a thousand years less fifty. These varied appeals belong to that long endurance.

Nūḥ recalls how he urged them to seek forgiveness: اسْتَغْفِرُوا رَبَّكُمْ اِنَّهُ كَانَ غَفَّارًا. Seek your Lord’s forgiveness, for He has always been abundantly forgiving. He calls them to turn from their disbelief to a Lord whose forgiveness is abundant. The promise includes renewed provision: يُرْسِلِ السَّمَٓاءَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِدْرَارًا; He will send abundant rain upon you. He will support them with wealth and sons, make gardens for them, and make rivers for them. The invitation reaches them through the good they love: rain for their land, children, flourishing gardens, and running water. The Lord whose forgiveness he offers can also renew the life around them. Hūd later gives another people the same sequence: seek forgiveness and return, and abundant rain will be sent.

The appeal now turns from promised provision to the greatness of its giver: مَا لَكُمْ لَا تَرْجُونَ لِلّٰهِ وَقَارًاۚ. Why do you not revere Allah’s greatness? Nūḥ calls them to an acknowledgment that would govern their conduct—faith in Him and fear of disobeying Him. They give commanding authority to wealthy leaders and inherited gods, while neglecting the Creator to whom they owe their existence.

Their own formation supplies the immediate evidence: وَقَدْ خَلَقَكُمْ اَطْوَارًا. He has created you in stages. From a drop, through the clot and the forming flesh, they were brought into human life. The Creator’s power and care are already present in the bodies of those who refuse to revere Him. Elsewhere the Qur’an joins such stages of human formation to rain-revived earth and the certainty of resurrection. Their beginning gives them reason to acknowledge both the One who made them and His power to bring them forth again.

The appeal moves from their own creation to the heavens: اَلَمْ تَرَوْا كَيْفَ خَلَقَ اللّٰهُ سَبْعَ سَمٰوَاتٍ طِبَاقًاۙ. Have you not seen how Allah created seven heavens layered one upon another? وَجَعَلَ الْقَمَرَ ف۪يهِنَّ نُورًا وَجَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ سِرَاجًا—He made the moon a light within them and the sun a lamp. The moon lights the night; the sun is compared to a lamp that illuminates the world. Al-Mulk repeats the exact layered-heavens phrase and commands the eye to return again and again, searching for rupture until sight returns humbled and exhausted. Nūḥ asks them to recognize in these works the greatness they have failed to acknowledge.

Nūḥ returns from the heavens to their own origin: وَاللّٰهُ اَنْبَتَكُمْ مِنَ الْاَرْضِ نَبَاتًاۙ. Allah has made you grow from the earth. Human creation is expressed through the familiar image of growth from soil. But the plant-image does not end in present life. ثُمَّ يُع۪يدُكُمْ ف۪يهَا وَيُخْرِجُكُمْ اِخْرَاجًا. Then He will return you into it and surely bring you out again. The earth is origin, dwelling, grave, and threshold of resurrection. Elsewhere the same itinerary is compressed into creation from earth, return into it, and emergence from it once more.

The earth is also made fit for their present life: وَاللّٰهُ جَعَلَ لَكُمُ الْاَرْضَ بِسَاطًاۙ لِتَسْلُكُوا مِنْهَا سُبُلًا فِجَاجًا۟. Allah made it spread out for them so that they might travel through its broad ways. Al-Anbiyāʾ likewise names broad paths among the provisions God has made for human life. The ground beneath their feet, no less than the heavens above, gives them reason to acknowledge the Creator’s care.

Nūḥ resumes his address to Allah: رَبِّ اِنَّهُمْ عَصَوْن۪ي وَاتَّبَعُوا—my Lord, they disobeyed me and followed. His command وَاَط۪يعُونِ, obey me, has met with disobedience; instead, they follow leaders described as مَنْ لَمْ يَزِدْهُ مَالُهُ وَوَلَدُهُٓ اِلَّا خَسَارًا—one whose wealth and offspring increase him only in loss. Wealth and sons were among the gifts promised with repentance. Here, wealth has made the leaders arrogant and their children have made them feel secure. Their possessions give them prestige, but following them draws others into the loss they themselves are earning. Elsewhere, wealth and children are declared unable to protect the disbelievers from Allah’s punishment. Having these gifts is not proof that their possessors are fit to guide others.

The plot speaks through a command of preservation: لَا تَذَرُنَّ اٰلِهَتَكُمْ وَلَا تَذَرُنَّ وَدًّا وَلَا سُوَاعًاۙ وَلَا يَغُوثَ وَيَعُوقَ وَنَسْرًاۚ. Do not leave your gods; do not leave Wadd, Suwāʿ, Yaghūth, Yaʿūq, or Nasr. This is the only extended speech the opponents receive in the sūrah, and it is not an answer to Nūḥ’s appeal through creation. It is the leaders’ command that their followers preserve their worship. Nūḥ has appealed to Allah’s work as Creator and provider. The gods appear here only as objects of loyalty, named and defended by human command. Elsewhere the Qur’an exposes such rivals as names named by people and their ancestors without authority from Allah. Their many names cannot answer the Creator’s many acts.

The account now states their end: مِمَّا خَط۪ٓيـَٔاتِهِمْ اُغْرِقُوا فَاُدْخِلُوا نَارًا. Because of their offenses, they were drowned, then made to enter a fire. The wording carries them from drowning into the Fire of punishment after death. Their end in the water is not an escape from what follows it. There is no extended account of the Flood here: the judgment follows the long record of the refusal that brought it upon them. The verse ends, فَلَمْ يَجِدُوا لَهُمْ مِنْ دُونِ اللّٰهِ اَنْصَارًا. They found no helpers apart from Allah. The gods they defended could not defend them. In Hūd, even a mountain cannot protect from Allah’s command except where He grants mercy.

The account returns to the prayer Nūḥ made before their destruction: رَبِّ لَا تَذَرْ عَلَى الْاَرْضِ مِنَ الْكَافِر۪ينَ دَيَّارًا—my Lord, leave no disbelieving inhabitant upon the earth. Hūd supplies the revelation behind this plea: none beyond those already believing will believe, and Nūḥ must no longer plead for the wrongdoers, for they will be drowned. Al-Qamar shows him praying for help after his people reject and overpower him. His prayer follows the long mission already recounted here and the revelation that no further faith will emerge among them.

Nūḥ gives his reason: اِنَّكَ اِنْ تَذَرْهُمْ يُضِلُّوا عِبَادَكَ. If You leave them, they will mislead Your servants. Their influence threatens others as well as themselves. He continues, وَلَا يَلِدُٓوا اِلَّا فَاجِرًا كَفَّارًا: they will bear only children who will grow into wickedness and persistent disbelief. He describes what their offspring will become, not guilt present at birth. His long experience of their persistence, together with the revelation that no more of his people would believe, informs this terrible judgment on the future they would perpetuate.

The final prayer also seeks forgiveness. رَبِّ اغْفِرْ ل۪ي وَلِوَالِدَيَّ وَلِمَنْ دَخَلَ بَيْتِيَ مُؤْمِنًا وَلِلْمُؤْمِن۪ينَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتِۜ. My Lord, forgive me, my parents, whoever enters my house as a believer, and the believing men and believing women. He asks for forgiveness as one who himself needs it, and includes believers far beyond his own household. Ibrāhīm later prays in a closely corresponding pattern for himself, his parents, and the believers. Prophetic prayer does not end at personal rescue; it widens toward the faithful community.

The Qur’an’s order gives this account a striking neighbour. Nūḥ’s people placed their fingers in their ears; the immediately following sūrah opens with a group of jinn saying that they have heard a wondrous Qur’an which guides to what is right, and have believed it. Nūḥ’s calling increased his people in flight; the jinn acknowledge that they cannot escape Allah anywhere on earth or elude Him by fleeing. The contrast makes the futility of that flight clear: refusing to hear the messenger does not put anyone beyond the judgment of the One who sent him.